PixlBit

That's a bold name for a game – it immediately makes you think, "This game must be badass." Or at least that's what developer AGO Games thought you'd think about the game based on its title. Put up or shut up, I say – and based on my experience, AGO ought to be shutting up right about now. The Asskickers is a completely terrible game that achieves little more than being just that, a game.

Given the right dose of humor and design, The Asskickers name could've been funny in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. As it stands, it seems to take itself pretty seriously – either that or I just don't get their version of humor. It seems to fall back on horrible dialogue and seemingly pokes fun at the stereotypical country club frat boys and girls, as seen in various movies since the '70s.

Oh right, you probably want to know what kind of game this abomination is. It's a side-scrolling beat-'em-up, which the title does somewhat allude to. You'd think in a day and age where the side-scrolling beat-'em-up has already seen its glory days that people would only make a new one if they thought it could stand head and shoulders above the all-time greats. Turns out AGO didn't get the message, as this Double Dragon wannabe is barely functional and incredibly rote.

The game is presented with hand drawn graphics and animation. This is typically a real plus for any game, but here it's extremely low budget and only acts as a detractor. I'd say it looks like a Flash game, but at this point most of those look better than this.

Combine this with the low-fidelity sound effects that offer little feedback and oomph to your actions and the game almost seems like some sort of joke. I'm honestly still not sure if this game is intended to be taken seriously – it's that bad.

Not that I want these types of games to be all that complicated, but The Asskickers is insultingly simple. You can walk, jump, punch, and pick up objects and weapons, such as golf clubs. That's it. This could work, if it all wasn't so slow-paced. Compare this to its influence, Double Dragon, and it's absurdly simplistic. Those games offered a variety of moves as the series evolved, providing for the ability to form strategies and take down the varied foes. This is just the same thing over and over, with mostly the same enemies, in section after section of each level.

Did I mention that even on Normal difficulty the game is absurdly hard? Enemies typically run away and their attacks are extremely powerful. Hope you don't die, or you'll find yourself back at the beginning of the level. But you'll die, you'll die lots. Easy difficulty offers unlimited lives, so it's the only opportunity anyone is going to have to make it all the way through the game.

The game is also pretty buggy, which doesn't help the experience any. In one instance, a number of country club guys cruised from one side of the screen to the other on scooters. While I dispatched three of the four foes with relative ease via a jumping attack, I couldn't hit the last one no matter what I tried. He consistently ran me over and eventually I lost all of my lives and was forced to restart the entire level (I made the mistake of playing on Normal).

Bad gameplay, bad graphics, stiff animation, terrible sound, and bugs – I'm not sure what else could possibly be wrong with a game, but The Asskickers manages to check all of the boxes. Sure it only costs five bucks, but you could light a five dollar bill on fire and watch it burn and that would at least provide a fleeting moment of joy; that's more than I can say for The Asskickers.